Purvi Patel faces 70 years in jail for delivering a premature baby at home and believing her fetus was stillborn. She was found guilty of feticide and neglect. I want to put these frightening abuses of her legal rights aside for a moment… The fact that she was questioned immediately after an anesthetic. We don’t … Continue reading →

I don’t like babies. I don’t like looking at them eat, sleep, crawl or at anything they do. I realized several years ago that babies annoyed me, but I just didn’t know why (after all, I have two former babies). And then my sons and I were at their swimming class. They must have been … Continue reading →

The infant mortality statistics are out again. This always depresses me because: A) The rates are atrociously high and B) There is so much legislation passed to restrict abortion in the name of “life,” but politicians and judges seems awfully silent on infant mortality. In the United States 6.4 infants out of every 1,000 born … Continue reading →

This question was sent to me via Twitter. The person who added my name to the tweet knew that I might have something to offer because 10 years ago I was that friend. I entered the hospital with ruptured membranes at 22 1/2 weeks, pregnant with triplets. My son Aidan died at birth and my … Continue reading →

Today is Kangaroo Care awareness day. Kangaroo care (KC) is the practice of skin-to-skin contact with a premature baby and parent. In low and middle-income countries, where there are fewer medical resources, Kangaroo Care has been shown to reduce mortality among premature babies and shorten the length of hospital stay. Kangaroo Care is also very … Continue reading →

Mothers who deliver prematurely face serious health risks that are often neglected when we talk about prematurity. Today, in honor of Savita Halappanavar’s death from sepsis that was a direct result of her previable premature delivery, I would like to let the world in on the physical perils faced by mothers who deliver prematurely. Many … Continue reading →

Finding out your baby is going to be premature is one of the most stressful things for parents-to-be. In addition to all the fears about the effects of prematurity, many parents also worry about the method of delivery. How can a tiny, fragile premature baby manage to make it through the birth canal without injury? … Continue reading →

I am the mother of three boys, but the parent of two. My three children were born extremely prematurely, but it was just too much for my first son. My surviving boys, Oliver and Victor, weighed 1 lb 11 oz and 1 lb 13 oz respectively. Because being born at 26 weeks (14 weeks early) … Continue reading →

PTSD is a normal response to an abnormal situation. A horrible, terrible, situation. It affects 76% of mothers who have/had babies in the neonatal intensive care unit. It affects me. I’d like to say affected, but it is a scar and like all scars it fades, but never completely goes away. Injuries cause scars. And … Continue reading →

I am not a fan of awareness months. The campaigns go on too long and frankly, the pinking of October (or greening, or whatever color has captivated Madison avenue) leaves me feeling like diseases are part of a company’s portfolio. I also don’t appreciate being harassed every time I swipe my credit card at Safeway … Continue reading →